This is a combined ad from Virgin Wines and Travelodge and hotel chain, and works really well. If you like one of the products already you get to know the other product as well - if you go for the offer that is. Another thing they get right is to use humour with the Sherry part. Humour makes people like you, and if they like you there’s a better chance they’ll buy from you. Last but not least they use urgency with a deadline (”Book by 24th August”). The really important part is in the small print though, because the voucher you receive is only valid if you spend £64.99 or more. Clever, huh? Or maybe just sneaky, who knows. Another reason of the combined offer is to avoid people from ordering wine in bulk. You also have to pay for the hotel room after all. You task is now think how you can use this strategy in your business. Good luck.

Getting Things Done - David Allen

I was quite excited about this book since I’m the programmer of the open source script at bookmark-manager.com and wanted to learn more. This book created so much hype that I decided to buy it. However after reading the first chapters I was more confused and bored by all the weird jargon. Most of that stuff is common sense anyway. There is a good comment on this book on Amazon so no need to go on about this book any longer.

E-Myth - Michael Gerber

Another book I’ve read was the E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber. A book which I liked even though at times the author became “too spiritual” for my taste. Sometimes the book seemed to be a long sales letter for his company and I missed the fact that he didn’t go into the nitty gritty enough. One of his ideas is to track everything in your business and to write down your business strategy. So basically his message is be organized. Hmm.. great.

Finally I’ve read “How To Make Millions With Your Ideas” by Dan S. Kennedy and “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David J. Schwartz. Both are very good. Dan’s book has got a lot of “nitty gritty”.

By the way there’s one thing I noticed. If you don’t want to buy a book just read the comments. They often give away the gist of the book. Most books could be summarised to a few pages anyway. So this strategy means you can get a lot of ideas in a short time without spending a lot of money and time. Clever, ey?

First I went to a milkshake shop, had a look at the the available drinks and waited. There was only one employee who was busy preparing a milkshake and a couple of waiting customers. I waited about 2 minutes more before I left, because I wasn’t really in the mood of waiting and not that determined to get a milkshake. Now I’m not blaming the girl working there since she was busy preparing a milkshake, but wouldn’t it have been much smarter to stop her work and immediately ask me what I want and “secure the cash”? That way I would have been forced to wait for my shake and wouldn’t have left. I guess the problem was that she hasn’t been trained to think in that way and that she just thought along the lines of “doing her job”. But then again she will lose her job if this new and fragile business goes down the dumps.

The next stop was when I went to the hairdresser. I asked if they have time now and they said yes, I was offered a fair price and served immediately. Then the hairdresser talked to me about all kinds of things and thus build a relationship with me. Finally when I left the woman told me that next time I get 2 Pounds off and wrote it on the business card she gave me. All very smart, because I don’t have to queue, I get a fair price, they build a relationship with me and next time its even cheaper. There are heaps of hairdressers in this little town I live in, so do something to stand out.

Afterwards I passed by a small cafe, they have a big banner there say “Clotted Cream Tea”. I already passed by that a couple of times always wondering what exactly is “Clotted Cream Tea”. Since the weather was nice and I was curious about it, I finally ordered one. The lesson here is make some noise about a specific product and give it an unusual name which makes you curious. People like to try new things.

Anyway just a few lessons here. Not really internet marketing related but still you can learn something from it.

Granted I’ve been doing Internet stuff full time for the last 10 years but I kind of miss an internet marketer who dares to teach more advanced techniques. I suspect that most gurus don’t do that because this would undermine their position. I guess its like with those Kung Fu masters who teach their students the basics but keep some advanced knowledge to themselves. Thus over generations more and more knowledge about Kung Fu got lost - at least thats what I’ve been told. The alternative is that there isn’t really any “secret stuff” out there, that Internet Marketing is basically very simple. My guess is that the truth is somewhere in-between. And as long as you can make good money with teaching basics not much will change. Another problem is that many gurus don’t really have a sound technical background and thus don’t have a choice. In fact some gurus even boast that they’ve been failures before they’ve made it big in Internet Marketing, and thus basically saying if I can do it so can you. So I’m wondering if anybody can recommend a marketer who specialices on advanced techniques. I’m seriously considering to buy stuff from Randy Baustert who is a real programmer like me and who is doing now IM. He has also been very helpful to me in his forums and made a logo for me. Anyway thats just my 2 cents, let me know your thoughts in the comment section.

Michael Cheney releases a new personal development video almost daily.

If you are looking for a digital solution to organize and capture your information check out my free online organizer.

From his eBay store you can see that he is also using all kinds of different titles for the same product, so he can target many different keywords. You can also see that he put a lot of effort into the sales page, adding plenty of testimonials to convince people to buy. You can learn a lot from this guy, check it out.